Blue Origin announcement heats up 21st century space race between Florida and Texas

With Blue Origin’s announcement today that it will launch rockets from Florida the 21st space race just got a little bit hotter.

During the 20th century Florida’s space coast was king of U.S. launches. And while there has been some activity at places like Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in recent years, Texas is now emerging as the biggest competitor to Florida’s dominance in commercial space activity.

This is an artist rendering of a proposed spaceport at Boca Chica Beach in Cameron, County, Texas near Brownsville, Texas. (SpaceX)

The 56.5-acre launch site will blast up to 12 rockets a year into space, including two Falcon 9 Heavy rockets, which could begin flying in 2016. These launches would be for commercial (i.e. satellites) as well as possibly NASA purposes.

Texas offers a friendly business climate and few launch restrictions compared to Florida’s somewhat congested Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the sunshine state’s east coast.

But now Blue Origin has formally announced its intention to build and launch rockets from Florida’s spaceport, at Launch Complex 36. It’s worth noting that the company has done much of its development and testing in West Texas to date. And while those operations will continue, it will do most of its construction and launch work in Florida.

The company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, said the company will invest $200 million in Florida:

One of the unique things about our Florida operations is that we aren’t just launching here, we’re building here. At Exploration Park, we’ll have a 21st century production facility where we’ll focus on manufacturing our reusable fleet of orbital launchers and readying them for flight again and again. Locating vehicle assembly near our launch site eases the challenge of processing and transporting really big rockets.

So while Texas has Elon Musk and SpaceX, Florida now has Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. Both men and companies seek to revolutionize spaceflight by slashing launch costs and building reusable rockets. Both are developing spacecraft that will carry humans to and from space.

New Shepard launches from West Texas. (Blue Origin)

By setting up shop in two large southern states, the two companies have pitted Texas vs. Florida. As Brevard County Commissioner Robin Fisher put it in Florida on Tuesday, “We’re trying to own the commercial space world.”